Voice of Strings
by TyrantChimera
Summary: Mandolyn had always been the quiet type. She rarely talked, except through the strings of her mandolins. The only exception was her diary, where she spoke with ink instead. A diary that was hidden from the world. Until one fateful day, a little Owl boy finds it... Owlboy, Oneshot. There isn't even a category for this poor fandom, wow.


Mandolyn had always been the quiet type. This was something she knew this all too well. She rarely talked or made a sound, except through the strings of her mandolins. Mandolyn knew that she could smile and chat amiably with her neighbors, sure, but only when they addressed her directly. Only when there was no other option. But she never said what was really on her mind. Somehow, though she could weave sonnets and epics through the strings of her mandolins, words from her own mouth never flowed quite as gracefully. Her voice was not so musical. When it came to her true thoughts, she hid them. Like sheet music... her true thoughts were penned to page, but never seen in the light of day.

The only exception was her diary, where she spoke with ink instead. A diary that was hidden from the world.

Oh, yes, Mandolyn had a diary indeed. A diary where she let her true thoughts out, talking to herself in ink like she couldn't talk to anyone else. About the dreams she thought were too silly to reveal, how she'd always loved those Ish fruit trees with the blue fruit. How she wanted nothing more than to sit in the shade of a tree and eat Ish and play music. About the one soldier who brushed eyes with her with a small smile, and how she wanted so badly to smile back and say hello. About many things that no one would have associated with her. How she wanted to speak, but could never find her voice, about how she wanted to sing in font of an audience but could barely trill with her strings. Her instrument sounded out more than her. Mandolyn, her name, and mandolin, her voice. The girl who never talked. Mandolyn, the true Mandolyn, is a secret known only by the pages of a single book. And she's proud to keep it that way. She's all too happy to keep herself hidden in her diary, and then hiding the diary itself where only she knows to find it.

Until one fateful day, when someone finds it.

After a long day avoiding contact, as per usual, Mandolyn had opened her door and walked into her home. But the door hadn't been on its latch properly, and she didn't really register it until she spotted her poor diary, her sacred, hidden thoughts, being read by a boy not half her height.

Otus looked up at her, eyes confused and innocent of their crime. A bag at his side held more books, and several things came crashing down into Mandolyn's mind all at once. What a disaster this was! Had she forgotten her diary on the table? Why was Otus in here? Wait. Otus! He was mute, he couldn't tell anyone. Relief. But he's reading her diary? Why!? Reading it like a textbook. Her face. Ow, her face? Her jaw was hurting from where it'd dropped to the floor.

Mandolyn snapped her mind back to reality, and her mouth shut, although her eyes still felt as big as one of Bomboman's drums. She stuttered out, her little used voice sounding even more trill and broken than usual. "My... diary...?"

Otus blinked at her, looked down at the book, and looked back up. He gave her a wide grin and peeped in his own little way, the only sort of vocalization he could make. His eyes were innocent, unknowing of his faux pas. And oh, of course they were. He was a child who had books for friends. Vellie had few children after all, and so the little owl had taken to hoarding a small library of tomes for entertainment. It's why Asio had taken him on as a student, of course. Perhaps he couldn't talk, but anyone who could go through a textbook in less than a week was no doubt smart enough to overcome a little quirky silence.

Mandolyn was still terrified. Someone had seen her innermost thoughts. Someone knew the words she never spoke. All her tricks, her avoidance of others, her inability to say what she felt and the social walls she'd raised to hide behind. All those guards had been slipped past with ease by one curious little owl. She felt like someone had sliced her heart from her chest.

Otus peeped again. He was confused.

"You, ah..." Mandolyn began, "you... can keep a secret, yeah?"

Otus put his hands on his hips, and puffed out his chest, and whistled a confident command. Yes. Yes, he would most certainly do his duty!

Such enthusiasm. Mandolyn really wasn't sure she could trust the child so much, he was just a child after all. But she really didn't have much of a choice. Still. He was mute. He literally couldn't tell anyone. Her secrets could still be safe... She could work with this! She huffed out, a little relief coming to her tone, "Well, that's my diary. When people write in a diary, it's meant to be secret, okay? So.. uh..." Mandolyn blinked. How to proceed? "So, uh, just... don't let anyone know you read that, okay?"

Otus nodded emphatically, so much so that he made himself a little dizzy judging by how his eyes lost focus. He closed her diary, placed it back on the table gently, and patted it as if to say "it's safe and I took care of it!" Then he left left her house with a smile on his face. As if nothing horribly world-ending had happened at all.

Mandolyn was still terrified, of course. This could be world ending. It was world ending, at least for her! Her little private world, her secret self, was no longer secret. Someone knew. Mandolyn walked over to her diary, checked it from face to final page, and shoved it away safely where it would never see the light of day again. She should have never left it out. This was on her, it was her fault, and she felt secretly proud of herself that she hadn't broken down and let Otus see her terror. No, she'd kept that much secret.

That was good. She still had secrets, She still had herself that no one would know. And in that, she began to feel a little safe again.

The next day, in the middle of the afternoon, a solid knock fell on her door. Mandolyn stood and opened it, utterly perplexed about who would want to interrupt her in her abode. It was Otus. She blinked, her eyes wide again, as he peeped and held up... an Ish fruit? It was large and blue, with a rough skin and a thick stem.

Mandolyn blinked again. What?

Otus also blinked. He peeped, and held the fruit to her again, giving it a little shove towards her. Mandolyn just blinked. What was all this about...?

Otus held his position until is was more than awkward. It took several minutes for him to stop presenting the fruit. He tilted his head to the side and frowned at Mandolyn as if _she_ were the one acting weird, as if it was perfectly normal for a neighbor that she rarely met with to be gifting her a fruit twice the size of his head.

She blinked. He blinked back.

And then he peeped happily, and trotted meaningfully over to a little patch of empty land on the far side of the floating island her home was on. She watched him go, still confused. He stopped near the edge, hummed to himself, then turned and caught her gaze. He waved, then sank to his knees, dug a hole, and buried the fruit. Then he sternly trotted back to her where she was leaning out her door, and puffed out his chest. He whistled once and nodded, as if he'd done a very important job.

"Um... thank you...?" Mandolyn stuttered in response to the look he gave her. Otus clearly was trying to tell her that he'd done what she wanted, but she still wasn't sure she'd quite understood his weird behaviour. She stood up straight, subconsciously taking a step back to try and figure out the situation, and in doing so realized, a little too late, that she probably looked like she was inviting him in. The young child took the invitation before she even realized she'd accidentally made it.

The little Owl boy looked around. His eyes fell to the place her diary had been yesterday. He looked up at her, a little bereft. It clicked.

He wanted to read her diary again.

Mandolyn went through a rush of emotions and thoughts. Confusion clamored with shock and anger, and somewhere in the middle her brain snapped to attention and told her, reminded her, of the fact that she'd technically, actually, maybe should have told Otus that he shouldn't be reading people's diaries. There was a difference between "it's a secret," and "it's a secret you _shouldn't know_,", after all. A grievous oversight. She should have known to tell him this as an adult. He was a little boy who liked to read books, what made a diary any different from a novel in his eyes? Nothing really. This would have to be corrected.

And yet...

Well. He was mute. And... he'd planted Ish fruit in her front yard? A blue Ish fruit, just like the ones she'd written about how much she liked them. It was actually kind of sweet. He was a strange little kid who couldn't say a word. Maybe...

"Otus... People aren't supposed to read other people's diaries..." she began, and Otus's face fell, guilt as he realized that he'd done wrong. "...So, it will be our little secret. Okay?" Otus perked right back up and grinned shyly. And Mandolyn chided herself. It wasn't as if he hadn't read it already... but she wasn't sure why she was letting him read it again. It was her diary. It was her secret self. She'd proudly guarded it for so long. So why was she letting him read it?

One week later, the fruit Otus had buried began to sprout.

Mandolyn and Otus stared down at it. Mandolyn leaned down as far as she dared with her tall frame. Otus, nearby, chirped with utter joy. She looked at him and he smiled proudly back. He scooched over and sat down, patting the ground next to him. She sat down too. It took half an hour of silence for her to realize what he'd done. He'd planted a tree, and... well, granted it was a little small... but here was a tree, and here was she, sat in its shade. Or, where there would be shade, one day. She looked over at Otus, and smiled more widely than she had in a long, long while.

She didn't say anything that day. But that night, she wrote in her diary and thanked him. And she used her words to praise him as much as she could. Maybe these weren't words spoken aloud, sure. But Otus and her could have a conversation here, in her diary. She liked it. She liked using her words.

Maybe, one day, she could use them on something other than paper...

For a little while, it became routine. Tradition, even. She'd write in her diary and leave it out where Otus could find it. She'd talk with him, even though she wasn't talking at all, and he couldn't reply because he was mute. But for two very quiet people, it was a boisterous conversation. Her diary was still a secret, of course. One she never let anyone read. Anyone but Otus. Because Otus knew she couldn't use her voice for her words, and didn't care. He couldn't either. It was something they shared, and in the end, enjoyed.

A couple more weeks passed. Mandolyn was out by her new little tree, taking care of it as it grew up slowly but steadily. Otus was nearby, watching her and holding an urn of water dutifully in case she needed it.

"Whoops!"

She turned just in time to watch a poor soldier fall from the sky, right on top of her house. She winced as he smacked into it face first, then slide off and landed on her front lawn with a 'whumpf'. She blinked. And then blushed, because she recognized the soldier.

"Hey, sorry about that," Geddy began, wiping off dirt, "I'm a little clumsy today I guess! Uh, heh..." He looked aside, as if trying to find something to say. His cheeks were dusted with a blooming blush, the rose color complimenting his outfit. "Er... I guess it's good the uniform is green... Heh..." He picked off some grass, which no doubt would have stained him where it was smeared all over his knee.

Mandolyn blushed too. "Heh..." Was all she could manage though. Her voice was failing her, once more.

Geddy just grinned, his toned apologetic, "Er... I think I knocked a few shingles loose, whoops. Sorry?"

Mandolyn didn't really know how to react, so she just waved his apology off. It would just give her something to do later. Geddy twiddled his fingers, looking up to where some of his fellow soldiers manned the gate. He had a hopeful look in his eyes, but that soon went aghast and the cheeky leers his fellows were directing down at him. There was far too much mischief in their eyes. If he'd been looking for an out, he wasn't getting one from them.

Geddy gave them an unamused snort, then turned back to Mandolyn,. "Well, anyways, uh... it was... Mandolyn, right? Er... you, er, play the mandolin, right...? Uh..." A few guffaws cut him short from above. If Mandolyn had not been so absorbed in her own hesitance, she might have realized that they were laughing at just how awkward things were getting. It was a lot more fun when all you had to do was watch from the sidelines, apparently. But brave Geddy was bravely marching on, filling in the conversation even if only one side had anything to add to it, "Heh, sorry about that, again. We were just testing out the locking mechanism up there. Been getting... er... a little gummy?" His words almost seemed random. He was babbling now, doing his best even if he didn't know what he was doing it for.

"Um..." Mandolyn tried to reply. Words. Words! She needed words, and just wasn't coming up with any!

Otus, bless his little soul, is suddenly walking between them. Both her and Geddy are stopped short as he nonchalantly passes betwixt the two, and trots purposefully into her house. "What's up, little buddy?" Geddy asks him, but goes ignored. Both he and Mandolyn blinked as he disappears in the doorway. They watch, and wait. And in short order, Otus is back out, holding her favourite mandolin. He chirps, and presents it to her just like he'd presented the Ish fruit not long ago.

Otus was mute. He never had words. And he didn't need them, either. Mandolin accepted her instrument with a gracious smile.

Words were a strange thing. She wasn't good with them, although with Otus, she'd been getting better. Even if they were only words on a page, flowing ink and imagination. But if Otus could help her with words on a page, maybe the soldier that her stole her words away could help her learn to find some to replace them with.

"Yes, I play. Would you like to hear?"

Well, maybe she'd learn to use her other words in time. For now, her mandolin was her words, her voice. And so she played, and Geddy listened, and Otus went off to poke at a little bird that had landed not far away. The wind whistled past gently, as if joining them in conversation. A silent conversation of song. A conversation filled with meaning and grace that words alone could never match.

And so Mandolyn spoke fluently, with her voice of strings.


End file.
